Does anyone have advice for selling meat birds to family/friends?

[ninny]

I have never done meat birds but i have had people telling me that they would buy the birds from us. I sell eggs so it doesnt seem like that much of a jump to meat birds. I have a couple questions though.
How do you sell the birds? Live or plucked and bagged People seem to want them plucked and bagged here
Do you butcher them or send them somewhere?
What is the best breed? I really would like to not have to buy chicks but breed them to cut costs.
How do you pluck them?
Are there any good books on doing this?
Is it better to free range them or confine them? I free range my layers so they could run with them.
Should people prepay for the birds?
Could someone refer some threads for me to read?
How to do you decide what to charge?
Where can i find what the laws are for meat birds?
Does anyone sell meaties for pet food?
Thank you!!! I know this is a lot of questions.

 

[scubaforlife]

I would suggest Joel Salatin's book Pastured Poultry Profit.

You can sell the bird on property in advance, this way you are selling a live bird and avoiding all the legal junk, this is a pre-pay arrangement. Then you can kill and dress the bird as a nice addition for your customer. I caution you that you cannot sell a bird to someone only to have it die before you deliver it...

Best breed is subject to what you want out of the bird. Most people like white meat so a fast growing white meat bird is Cornish X, but you may want something else. You can hand pluck, build a whiz-bang plucker, or buy a commercial plucking unit.

Better to confine or range? Again, this depends. Would you rather stay in your bedroom with no kitchen or bathroom? I like ranging for the feed cost on forage. I also like the idea that they get plenty of sunshine and all the bugs they happen across.

I do some on property butchering, but the majority of my birds go to a custom poultry processor. They take in the birds and give me vacuum packed birds in my coolers, iced down.

I like the Featherman series on youtube for how to kill/process a bird.

http://video.google.com/videosearch...sult_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQqwQwAA#

As far as laws go, you can read the legal stuff on the APPPA.org site. my suggestion is to not learn the laws. I say this because the teeth behind most of these laws are pretty small and the first thing they do is tell you to stop. If you aren't anti-government like me you can ask your extension office or state ag person, this will trigger red flags and inspections and you will learn why MEGA-FARMING is so popular. (See Joel Salatin's book "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal".

I charge $12/chicken for whole chickens or quartered birds. The price goes up for boneless skinless.

BTW I love Polyface Farm and Joel Salatin's methods for decentralizing the food system and putting clean, environmentally responsible, nutrient dense, food out there. I applaud you for wanting to start this and my first suggestion is start small and do what you think you can. Only then will you learn that you were thinking too big or too small. Your first year is a learning year, make it fun and educational, not big and scary. Watch food inc, and encourage your customers to do the same. Invite them to come meet their meat.

 

[ninny]

Thank you! Do you think raising them between rows of fruit trees is a good idea? I just put his books on hold at the libary.

 

[Bossroo]

Go slow and easy to start. Breeding your own parent birds to get your own chicks is not the most economical way to go about it. Consider all the costs and labor involved to maintaining the parent birds year around vs. what one can purchase the day old Cornish X that were selectively bred for 60+ years to produce the most meat for the best feed conversion rate. 6-8 weeks at a time and you are done! They will be ready to slaughter in 6-8 weeks to produce a carcass weight of 4-8 lbs. vs. 18-24 weeks for a 3.5-5 lb carcass for ones that you would produce on your own. The chickens get little nutritional value from grass as it is mostly water. any bug that they may come accross they will loose much of that nurishment by running around looking for more bugs to eat. Tractoring the chicks after 3 weeks of age ( may need suplemental heat depending on feathering and daily temperature) between orchard trees would be a good idea to ease your clean up duties and give the birds some greens or even a bug or two and at the same time not run off to much weight gains but make sure to feed them 22% protein broiler feed full fed ( as in all that they can eat with some feed left over) for 12 hrs and no feed for 12 hrs/ day to limit their growth rate to limit losses. Don't forget to give them a secure and predator proof housing, as well as protection from sun, wind and rain. Have fun.

 

[ninny]

Thanks! The reason im wondering about breeding them myself is that i can put the hens in my laying flock. I'm getting tried of spending almost 200 dollars every spring on chicks.

 

[scubaforlife]

Quote:
YES it is a great idea. It will keep your orchard fertilized (as long as you move them every day), control pests, and will allow for a much better use of land. I hope you enjoy his books. I have read most of his stuff, seen him speak, and watch anything with Joel Salatin in it on youtube.

What I like about raising my own birds on pasture is they turn out MUCH better as far as clean and nutrient dense, goes.

 

[schmism]

we have talked about doing meeties for 3 years. Last year we stood over the 2 week old nuggets still left at the farm and home store marked down twice and thought real hard about takeing them home .... but didnt.

in the year sence then we spent time talking with friends about doing a batch and who would buy some. Our biggest issue was processing. we (the DW and I) didnt want to be stuck processing all the birds by ourselves, so finding friends that would be willing to help process the birds they would take home has taken some time.

SO after getting some committments that they would buy and would help....a week ago we found ourselves at the farm and home store picking up some feed and whatdaknow.... another batch of 28 meeties a week old and marked down. This time we went for it!

As ive read from various other articals and people who also do this. Once people learn you sell pasture raised (quazi organic) chicken, you usually dont have a problem selling them.

 

[ninny]

My main issue is the killikng and plucking. I can't kill them. My DH says he will but he refuses to pluck them by hand. There is no one in driving range to take them too. So not sure what to do there.

 

[schmism]

I am building a wizbang plucker. seems like a small investment (few hundred dollars) to not have to hand pluck chickens.

Even if we only do a few birds a year, or only if we only do a few batches then decide to get out, im shure i could sell it for what i have in it.

YOu might consider the same if you or your DH is handy.

 

[ninny]

Quote:
We been thinking about building one but the cost is the kicker. I was thinking maybe we could rent it out when we dont need it to try and get the money back.